The SJR produces timely updates and in-depth analysis on news and information of interests to Chinese in America and Americans in China.

Friday, December 09, 2011

A Court with no Brain

The US Supreme Court is reviewing a case which will decide whether a medical diagnostic method is patent-able.

Skipping to the point, sadly, it looks the court will go that path.

The Seagull is particularly disappointed by Justice Kagan's clueless comments in the court hearing, when she advised lawyers of one side, 'What you haven't done is say at a certain number you should use a certain treatment, at another number you should use another treatment.'

The argument at issue is Prometheus 'invented' a method to help doctors determine a proper dosage for a patient. The idea is straightforward: test the blood to see how much of a drug is present. It is alike a doctor order a patient to stop taking a medicine when the pain is gone, or stop taking another medicine when the body temperature back to 97.5 degrees.

Justice Kagan's comments went all the way to make people wonder the education quality of the colleges she had attended. Or perhaps the Supreme Court should conduct an IQ test before accept the next member.

Would someone patent 97.5 to make a profit, so that other doctors with less means could no longer mention that magic number? It's not a presumptive question, because similar numbers, such as particular protein structure, had already been granted patents by the US Patent Office. However, we have long known as a fact that the USPTO were filled with monkeys, no we learned about the Supreme Court.

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